Tuesday, August 27, 2013

It has been kinda fun hanging out with Evie the past few weeks without the big girls there. I'm starting to get jealous of Ben's weekly daddy-daughter dates. Last week we went to the children's museum. Not only was it nice not to have to chase 3 kids around, but it was also great that there were almost no big kids there. It was mostly preschool aged kids, and not very many at that. So we were able to take our time at each exhibit, and not worry about someone waiting impatiently for their turn. We also were able to skip certain areas that are more geared toward older kids. I was really surprised at her roses painting. I've not really seen her paint something recognizable before.

best buddies

Most of the time was spent in the pet clinic. She took care of every single dog and cat. This cat in particular, she took care of for a while. She had him cleaned and dried, weighed, and xrayed a few times. Then she was sad that she had to leave him behind when we moved on.

She also took care of each baby. thankfully there are fewer babies than cats and dogs.

most of those handprints are hers

there's usually a line for this big buuble maker. So I let her do it 6 or 7 times. She didn't pull fast enough, though, and the bubble would collapse on her.

This was set up by the front entrance and she requested a picture. as soon as I took the picture she shouted "guards! after her" and started chasing me.

there were princess dresses to put on in the new story book area. (at least new since the last time we went through it) but she said she was already dressed like a princess.

Good to know I'll have a helper the next time I paint a room...

Just one more week left til she starts preschool! but we'll still have the afternoons, and she only goes 3 days a week, so I'm sure we can have lots of mommy-Evie time.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Just a few pictures of what Evie and I have been up to this week. On tuesday we went to the park with some friends for lunch, and the kids fed the ducks. They were pretty excited. at first we couldn't find any ducks, but then we spotted them across the pond, and the kids started quacking. The ducks were right over to us as soon as they noticed we had food.

She had a great time at the park with her own little buddies, and no big sisters to boss her around. Some guys were there fishing, and had just caught a decent sized catfish that they let the kids touch. I think Evie was a little creeped out by it.

I think it was thursday that she begged me to bake cookies. She couldn't find her little apron, so I let her borrow one of mine. She was pretty happy about that.

She's pretty good at helping with the taste testing.

and the clean up too.

And of course she's great at making those cookies disappear! (not quite as great as Kiersten, though)

The pool is closed every weekday until 4 PM, which is kind of a bummer, because it would be nice to go hang out with just Evie. But I guess that's what you get when all of the lifeguards have to go back to school. I think if they posted a sign about "no life guard on duty", but still let moms come with the little ones, that would be great. The lifeguards don't watch the baby pool anyway. So we are taking as much advantage of it as we can on the weekends. I just signed Evie up for swim lessons starting in a few weeks and she is so excited about it. she wants to swim like Kara and Kiersten.

Kara thought it would be nice to float around on the raft almost the entire time we were there.

poor Keirsten wasn't feeling well. She kept going to the pool, and then coming back a few minutes later to lay down again.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The girls were so excited about going to school today! Kara was up super early, we're not sure exactly how early though. she opened the curtains in everyone's rooms so no one would oversleep. When I came downstairs in the morning, she was fully dressed with her hair done, playing 3DS while she waited for us. She didn't wear the clothes I set out for her, but I figured it's good to let her make those decisions if she wants to.

Kiersten was excited to finally get to wear her new clothes. She was even more excited to ride the bus. she's in afternoon kindergarten, but I signed her up to go to adventure club in the mornings on tuesday through thursday, because Evie has preschool those days in the morning, so I thought it would be easier if she could just ride to school with Kara. That way I wont have to be rushing between picking Evie up and getting Kiersten to school at the same time.

And a picture with Evie so she wouldn't get her feelings hurt. Her school doesn't start for a couple weeks. She has been sad a couple times today that she can't go to school yet, so I keep getting her excited for Mommy-Evie time. It's working so far, even though all we've done besides go to the gym is have lunch and read books. But there will be lots of time for us to do fun stuff without the others around.

the bus stop kids. and a few younger siblings too. Kara keeps telling Keirsten that they can't sit together, because they're supposed to sit by grade level. Kiersten was pretty worried about it until we reminded her about her friend who would be riding the bus as well. So that made her pretty excited for the bus to arrive this morning.

She was all smiles as soon as she heard the bus making it's way up the hill.

And off she went. I hope they're having a fun first day!

the girls wanted to go to the park yesterday for their last day of summer vacation.

it started raining pretty much as soon as we got there, but they wanted to play anyway. After eating lunch, and about 20 minutes of play time, there started to be some lightning, so we left.

The other things they wanted to do were ride bikes and go to the pool, but the thunderstorm lasted for a bit, so I told them to think of an indoor activity. They decided to make houses for their stuffed animals. I just painted and reorganized the pantry this weekend, so we happened to have plenty of empty food boxes for them to save from the recycle bin.

Evie made a house for her bunny, carrot. Hers was pretty simple, but she's happy with it.

She kept begging me to tape it shut on the side. I was trying to explain that her bunny couldn't get in and out, but she wouldn't hear it, and just kept insisting. So I finally did it, and within 3 minutes she came back to me upset that she couldn't get her bunny in there, and wanted me to remove the tape. Silly girl...

The big girls spent over 2 hours working on their houses. I even asked them if they'd like to bake cookies, but they just wanted to work on the homes. Kara made a mail box, bed, couch, tv, and more accessories.

Kiersten tried to make a few things for her house, but got quickly frustrated with the gluing, and decided to make lots of artwork for the walls instead.

Kara is pretty proud of the stairs she made for hers. Around the time I was getting dinner ready, they started freaking out about getting their houses upstairs so Daddy wouldn't think they were trash and throw them away. Once they had the mess cleaned up, they decided they would like to make cookies after all, but we had to leave for back to school night at CCL for Kara.

I am happy for them to be in school again learning new things, but I sure do miss them already!

Monday, August 12, 2013

Kara, kiersten, and Evie put together a rock concert last week. They put up posters all over the house announcing their show. they called themselves the Rocking Rollos. Kara actually asked me if she could hang posters all over the neighborhood, but I didn't think that was a good idea. They sold us tickets for ten imaginary cents.

Cute little ticket taker.

This was the souvenir table. they said we could help ourselves to as many free souvenirs as we wanted. Ben took the poster Kiersten made, since at dinner Kara was taunting her about "who would want that???" I ended up taking the pen and plastic lizard. Sadly, I don't think anyone wanted the toilet scrub brush :/

Earlier in the day, Kara asked if she could order one bowl of caramel corn from me for her concessions stand. She also had a cooler with a bottle of sprite and about 10 ice cubes. It was pretty adorable, even if it was mostly used by the performers themselves. you can sort of see one of her rock concert posters on the wall behind her.

It was a sold out show. They kept telling us we got the last 2 tickets. Lucky for us, we got the coveted couch seats.

The concert was a lot of singing and dancing. All of the music was original songs. Evie was pretty nervous at the beginning, and kept asking Kara what she was supposed to do.

I love the centerpiece they made for the table. We never did figure out what all the toys lined up along the wall had to do with the concert.

there was a costume change between each song. Luckily, kiersten is a quick changer, and she kept coming out to entertain us with her jokes. most of them were confusing, but she was cute to try. We probably laughed more at the ones that made no sense.

After the last song, Ben pointed out how slow all the songs had been. So they came out to do a rocking encore.